


You've  done nothing wrong

by abreathaway (silverraindrop)



Category: The Durrells (TV)
Genre: Other, sorry - Freeform
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-06-21
Updated: 2020-06-21
Packaged: 2021-03-03 23:41:30
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,037
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/24840220
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/silverraindrop/pseuds/abreathaway
Summary: It is strange, knocking on the door to the home in which he lived so long. He hadn't expected to be here so soon, but pulling out of the lane to Louisa's house it occurred to him that someone should tell Dimitra.
Relationships: Basil/Dimitra, Spiros Halikiopolous & Dimitra Halikiopoulos
Comments: 6
Kudos: 11





	You've  done nothing wrong

**Author's Note:**

> All the comments on my last work were "please write something happier". Oops.

It is strange, knocking on the door to the home in which he lived so long. He hadn't expected to be here so soon, but pulling out of the lane to Louisa's house it occurred to him that someone should tell Dimitra.

He wishes it didn't have to be him, that someone else knew the situation well enough to do this instead, someone who could give her the comfort she will surely need, without reservation. 

She answers the door with a breezy casual smile, which falls the moment she sees his face. "Spiros." She pulls the door ever so slightly more closed, dropping her hip in disdain. 

"Dimitra…" he tries to convey the correct apology. It is not easy, no matter what he cannot return to his wife, nothing in the world could change that. He will not apologise for the end of their marriage. But he feels the need to apologise for this.

Had his jealousy not driven Basil away he would still be alive. And he wouldn't be knocking on his own door about to tell his wife that her lover is dead.

Dimitra opens the door and gestures for Spiros to enter the house. The house is quiet enough for Spiros to discern that the boys are elsewhere. Small mercies. "I am sorry to have to tell you this Dimitra." She scoffs almost inaudibly and Spiros realises what she thinks he is about to tell her. That he has decided to pursue a relationship with Louisa, without the guise of repair works, to hell with gossip and shame. 

And what an easy world it would be if that was the case. 

"Basil is dead." He puts in bluntly, unable to find any easier way to do so. Dimitra steps back slightly, and Spiros frantically glances around to find the nearest surface to carry her to should she faint. "I am sorry, he was killed in Albania."

She is nodding slowly, tears just about to roll from her eyes. He wants to feel less for her right now, to feel as though her relationship with Basil was less than his with Louisa, like it served no purpose other than the destruction of his marriage. But he knows, deep down, that in front of him, his wife wants to weep for the loss of someone she cared for, maybe even loved, and the last shred of anger he felt against her melts away into pure compassion, and he pulls her into him and rubs his hands up and down her back. "I am so sorry."

She begins to cry into his chest, clinging to him tightly in a way she hasn't in years. They haven't been friends in so long. He cannot remember when really, or begin to place the blame on either of them, but his mind wanders back to the friendship times, when they used to talk about their days, and the days to come. He wonders where that went, at what point did they come together at the end of the day with nothing to say to each other. It is before Louisa, he knows that much. 

They have not been friends in so long, and he realises that their breakdown was inevitable. He just happened to find his person first. He wants to blame her for acting on her desires when he had shown such restraint for the sake of his vows. He wants to believe himself better than her for not physically cheating on her despite being so fully in love with someone else. But isn't that almost  _ worse _ . To be so completely and utterly in love with a woman who is not his wife, so in love that everyone can see it, and letting his restraint turn to anger towards Dmitra.

If the silence didn't push her into Basil's arms, the anger certainly had, and here they are now, standing in the living room they shared, with so little a connection between them, as he delivered the news of Basil's death. 

There are tears seeping through his undershirt, and he presses a kiss to the top of Dimitra's head. Maybe she slept with Basil to get back at him, show him how it feels to have your spouse have an affair with a foreigner. But looking at her, it is clear that that is not the whole reason. Basil held meaning, a fulfilment of needs Spiros wasn't filling, beyond the sexual.

Spiros wishes suddenly that he could be Dimitra's friend again. Like when they were younger. Talk to her in ways he hasn't in so long, see her as a person rather than his  _ wife _ . 

A woman he married out of duty, as much as it pains him to admit it. He wishes he had loved her like he should have. He loves her, he does. She is the mother of his children, the woman he has spent years with in constant companionship. But he does not love her fundamentally, and he knows he never did, knows that they could pretend at love all they wanted, pretending gets exhausting after years. 

Dimitra is not difficult to live with as a person. Just impossible for Spiros to live with as a wife. A man naturally filled with passion and adventure, settling out of duty was doomed from the start. He wishes he realized that sooner, and realized that really, Dimitra is just as much a victim in this as he is, a victim of compromise. 

She had been passionate too. The very reason he had been attracted to her in the beginning, a beautiful woman with a desire for adventure and a personality bursting with spontaneity. How was he to resist. But spontaneity, as they discovered, brought consequences, and passionate personalities do not always compliment each other. Not without something real to build on. 

"Your Louisa will be leaving?" Dimitra realises, whispering it into her chest.

"Yes." He confirms, there is no point in denying that Louisa is his, not now. "It is not safe for them to stay." 

She looks up at him fearfully. "It's really happening isn't it?" He can only nod in reply, and pull her back into his chest, where she stays until the tears are out.

  
  



End file.
